Please
by Don Juan's Red Death
Summary: Leroux with a touch of Webber thrown in. A new ending to the ghost's love story. Complete


**Please**

**A Phantom of the opera story**

**By Don Juan's Red Death**

_From the mind of Erik . . . _

Christine you look at me in the light, why are you crying? I don't understand my love, why your blue eyes search me in such disdain, oh please don't cry darling, see me now I am begging you. See I am at your feet, I hold on to your dress and you back away, your rosy cheeks turning a deathly shade of white right before my eyes. Oh my eyes, how horrible they are, just two burning holes in my head. My head. The dead and boney thing that it is, yes I see why it would frighten you my dear.

I reach out my hand and you withdraw yours, I grab it and still your struggles. I kiss it, you shiver, and I know not from desire. I smile and you do not return my gesture. Your eyes travel to my mask and you reach out your hand. "No, no Christine," I say and your eyes fall from me, see now you have caused me to upset you, oh please don't look at me that way. I kiss your hand as you ask me; no beg me to remove my mask. Again I refuse and again your eyes fall, oh you are a poor child you do not understand and I can never tell you.

"Angel," you murmur and I chuckle in such a way as to conceal the ironic feelings that word brings me. Ah . . . I _am_ a good actor I see, for you do not suspect a thing as you offer me a nervous closed-mouth smile. That's right, smile for me pretty little child, you brighten up my home with your smile. I take your hand and you hold back a flinch, such a sweet girl you are! Being brave for me! I lead you to my lake where you have a swim. Did you enjoy your swim? You nod your head and I smile as best as my face will allow. You eat dinner in my dining room, but I will eat alone.

When you ask if I would join you, I do not reply for a moment then refuse. How could I eat with you, an angel such as you are? To eat requires me to take off my mask, and I shall not do such a thing to you. You plead with me to come to you and I do as you ask; I can deny you nothing. Again you offer me a seat and again I refuse; your eyes well up. Oh no! Christine please don't cry, I promise we will spend time together after your meal! You pout and look at me with growing sadness, your eyes large with innocence.

_Oh curse you for giving me that look! _I think to myself as I fight the urge to kiss the expression off your face. Something I would never do; no my lips shall never befoul the grace of your angelic features. I settle for allowing my arm the privilege of curving around your tiny waist and feeling you stiffen I make a move to release you. You catch my hand and stop my retreat allowing me the treat of feeling your dress.

What a sweet child you are! Allowing a monster to touch you, maybe some of your purity will rub off on me. It is a foolish notion I know, to think that I should ever be pure.

Still one can dream . . .

You lean your head on my chest and I caress your beautiful golden locks with my boney fingers. Raising your head, you look into my burning eyes with a hidden fear still lingering in yours. I remove my hand, disgusted with myself for my lack of control. Please do not shout at me dear I am sorry, oh please forgive me. I never meant you any harm; only to wipe your eyes! I look up at you and see that you are not shouting, rather looking at me in the uttermost confusion.

I am embarrassed now as you can see and you begin to giggle at the sight of my thin lips curling into a self-mocking sneer. Hurry and finish your meal my love that we may sing together I tell you and you nod your head as I take my leave. You come out of the kitchen and I go in to do your dishes only to find that the chore has already been done. Ah . . . you sly little thing, doing my work for me when I should be the one who waits hand-and foot on you my dear. No matter, no matter, this leaves us more time for music my love.

We will begin singing the minor parts of Cybele and the heretics in D minor. On the count of four ready . . . all right Christine on the count of four. 1...2...3...4!

_I fear that I am of no use,_

_Only a scullery-maid_

_No mistress of dark-arts _

_For the little I am paid._

_What help am I to a man,_

_Who too win his heart's desire?_

_Must delve into black magic?_

_A spell for love_

_So tragic!_

**- - - -**

Yes, yes, you are ready then, yes you are quite ready to sing the main aria my love. I see your eyes widen. I say nothing. I lead you over to my organ where you stand beside me. We will begin with something from Faust: the main aria if you please my dear. Ready . . . all right Christine on the count of three. 1 . . . . 2 . . . 3 . . .!

_Holy angels in heaven blessed . . . _

_With thee my soul does long to rest!_

Very good Christine, yes very good indeed my little protégé, you make the demon smile, a luxury as it is. I begin to play again and you do not sing with the music! Ugh! How do ever expect to be a good singer if you do not practice? I turn around, you have fallen asleep; look at you lying there all curled up on my carpet. You are shivering, and cannot be too comfortable, yet I cannot bring myself to move you form your chosen resting place. To do so I would have to do one of two things, either wake you; which I loath doing; or lift you into my arms of which I forbid myself the very thought .I settle for propping your head up slightly on my waistcoat and draping my cloak over you.

Your beauty is captivating, especially when you sleep. When you eyes are closed and see nothing but the darkness. Your golden hair is splayed about the cloth as a symbolic halo of the angel you are, and the color has returned to your rosy cheeks like little flower buds to accent the dimples at the corners of your mouth.

My muse is flowing but I dare not play for fear of waking you and shattering the picture. I am trembling; the urge to create is driving me mad... I run silently out of the room to get control of myself but it is of no use. I find a drawing book, and find the only empty sheet and go back to where you lie. Sitting down on the floor I begin to sculpt out a beauty that even my artistic hands have always found difficult to master.

I have quite the eye for a thing of beauty being one who lacks in this area. And although I have made some of the most beautiful art in the world for that wretched Sultana back in Persia. Oh how I hated her, with every fiber of my being. She was ugly, a beauty compared to one such as myself but hideous all the same, and that is not the worst of it... she would make me create images of her that would exaggerate her beauty so that she would be immortalized in artwork. I did as she asked of me having no other choice; it was either do as I was told or die.

So I grudgingly did so and was proclaimed the greatest artist in the whole of Persia once my work was finished. Her features however, were easier to master for she herself though hideous to my eyes was only of average quality to the eyes of others. Not like you dearest, you have a beauty which is nearly immortal and would be so if it were not tied down by the bonds of mortal flesh, and how can one immortalize an angel? The answer baffles me... but it is of no matter.

I shall not allow myself to be driven mad by questions whose answers are unattainable. I work through the night on your picture, till the very early morning hours. I look at my schedule; it is June fifteenth, your date of birth! As I gaze upon your sleeping face once more I finish the drawing by completing your left eyelash.

I hold it away from my face, still I am not satisfied. Curse my mind for the endless needs of perfection... still it matters not as long as you are pleased with my work. You moan in your sleep turning your head in the opposite direction with a murmur of "father",' your face crinkles up and you begin to cry in your sleep. Oh not again! Sighing I bend over so that my mouth is by your ear, I begin to sing a lullaby and you calm yourself down into soft snores once more.

I am not beside you when you wake for I am working on my opera. You greet me with a good morning and a sweet smile, while I give you nothing but a slight nod. I am working you see on my masterpiece, my _Don Juan Triumphant,_ this is my life's work. Oh no darling you do not want to hear, this burns with all the hatred and sorrowful passions of hell and is not for the ears of one such as you. No Christine, you do not want to hear.

You come to my side and innocently place a kiss on the side of my masked face. I have to wait for you to leave the room to bathe before I can touch the spot. My hand holds your kiss there and I never want to wash it again, but reality is cruel and I realize that I must in order to fix you breakfast. Sighing I stand up, and wash, before cooking you a nice bowl of your favorite apple porridge and sprinkle cinnamon on it and a mug of hot chocolate for you to drink.

When you come out of my washroom you are enveloped in a thick bath-towel and I lead you by the hand into the next room. I watch you gaze in awe for several moments at the place, do you like it? I made it just for you. Going to the closet I toss you a scarlet dress coupled with a trimming of black satin roses. You smile and I smile back, before leaving you to dress.

Sighing I tap my foot to the drip, drip, drip, of the leak in my roof and go to find some plaster and an oil paintbrush to fix it. Once my task is done I go to put my materials down on the organ bench where my eyes fall upon your picture. Remembering what today is I allow myself a ghost of a smile before turning back and dipping the forgotten quill-pen in a nearby bottle of red ink. I scribble something down on the top and then blow on it three times to ensure quick drying.

After having found one of my old hand-made picture frames I dust it off and am delighted to find conveniently enough that it is the perfect fit for the sketch. I quickly set the gift properly and wrap it in bright blue paper. Setting it down next to your meal, I await for you to return. When you do I lead you over to the table. Seeing that you have finished your meal I stop you from getting up and hand you the parcel wrapped in blue paper. You look at me questioningly and I say happy birthday to make you understand.

You smile and thank me and I reply with "you are welcome." I lead you over to the organ where we begin your lesson. As I begin to play you come to me and without warning tear my mask form my face! I turn to you, you back away and I cannot help but shouting, "Look! You want to see! See! Feast your eyes; glut your soul on my cursed ugliness! Look at Erik's face! Now you know the face of the voice! You were not content to hear me, eh? You wanted to know what I looked like! Oh, you women are so inquisitive! Well, are you satisfied? I'm a very good-looking fellow, eh? When a woman has seen me, as you have, she belongs to me. She loves me for ever. I am a kind of Don Juan, you know! Look at me! I AM DON JUAN TRIUMPHANT!"

You look away and beg me to show mercy on you, oh no my sweet! You wanted to see me now go ahead and look. Ah, I frighten you, do I? I dare say! Perhaps you think that I have another mask, eh, and that this...this...my head is a mask? Well, tear it off as you did the other! Come! Come along! I insist! Your hands! Your hands! Give me your hands!

Know now, that I am built up of death from head to foot and that it is a corpse that loves you and adores you and will never, never leave you!...Look, I am not laughing now, I am crying, crying for you, Christine, who have torn off my mask and who therefore can never leave me again!...As long as you thought me handsome, you could have come back, I know you would have come back...but, now that you know my hideousness, you would run away for good. So I shall keep you here! Why did you want to see me? Oh, mad Christine, who wanted to see me! When my own father never saw me and when my mother, so as not to see me, made me a present of my first mask!

I can no longer bear it now that you have seen me. I cry out my anguish in my music room when all of a sudden the door bangs open and you rush to my side and hold me with a cry of, "Maestro show me your face without fear! I swear that you are the most unhappy and sublime of men; and, if ever again I shiver when I look at you, it will be because I am thinking of the splendor of your genius!"

Oh my sweet little Christine! I could not stop myself from doing what I did next; I fell at your feet and kissed your dress... before singing you to sleep.

I release you the following morning where we say good-bye and you promise to return to me in three days time.

- - - -

The next two days are hell for me Christine for I so long to see you, even with our pact it is hard. I cannot bear it any longer and soon I come to you on the night on the night of the Masquerade Ball. Oh how exquisite you look my love! I see you are with your old friend, ah M. De Chagny looks dashing indeed. You are going up to the roof? Oh what a silly little thing you are! Very well then I shall follow your lead... what are you doing? Why are you kissing his lips? You slip of a girl! You've betrayed me! Oh why Christine why?

I hear you tell the boy that you will sing for me tomorrow night, yes you will and I shall have a little surprise for you my love. You kiss his lips again; oh I do wish you would stop doing that! I hear him sing:

"_Say you'll share with me,_

_One love one lifetime._

_Let me lead you from your solitude,_

_Say you need me with you hear beside you._

_Anywhere you go let me go too._

_Christine, that's all I ask of you."_

You respond with your own verse, something similar to that effect and I feel my heart is breaking. Very well. We shall resolve this at the end of the opera in one evening's time.

**- - - -**

Your performance was exquisite, even your pretty lover thinks so. From that moment you sang with all your heart and soul. You tried to surpass all that she had done till then; and you succeeded. In the last act when you began the invocation to the angels, you made all the members of the audience myself included feel as though they too had wings.

_"Holy angel, in Heaven blessed..." _

_"My spirit longs with thee to rest!_"

Ah... my lovely Christine, it is time to go. Why are you screaming? Oh do stop it; it does tire one's head. Let's see how far the young man will go for you my dearest. What am I laughing at you ask when you can scream no more. Why my love that silly conductor, do you not hear him? Well listen closely:" Ladies and gentlemen, an unprecedented event has taken place and thrown us into a state of the greatest alarm. Our sister-artist, Christine Daae, has disappeared before our eyes and nobody can tell us how!"

Yes you see nobody knows how or why you have disappeared, what's that ringing sound? Ah someone has dropped into the torture chamber! Indeed, it is M. De Chagny and the Daroga! Oh don't cry Christine, see I am not hurting them... yet. You beg me to let them go very well, I shall after our game. You see my ring Christine, pretty thing is it not? A scorpion devouring a grasshopper, while the other eats its enemy. It's a riddle my love, now in the back room are two caskets and here is a little bronze key. In the caskets you will find a scorpion and a grasshopper, should you turn the scorpion you have accepted my proposal and merrily, merrily we shall hop off to our wedding.

If, however you choose the grasshopper than ii will mean you have refused me and it will at once be over with everybody. Go on now my dear make your choice... oh! You are a clever child to have chosen the scorpion, now we are engaged my love! I kiss your hand and you bend down pressing you lips to my forehead... oh thank you Christine! Now I must return to the opera house with the boy and the Persian I shall be back soon my dear...

- - - -

The deed is done and I am back now with you my dearest, you are smiling, as you take my arm. All right Christine, what are you playing at? You tell me in the smallest of voices that if we are going to be married then you might as well make the most of it. Yes, I suppose you are right.

A loud bang form the outside world comes to my ears and again I leave your side to see the source of the noise. It is M. Le Vicomte de Chagny.

He is bleeding.

He is dead.

There is a bullet wound in his face and a pistol in his hand. He must have committed suicide, when he lost you. Now the real question is what the boy was doing on the top of my stairs. I look over next to him and see the body of M. Le Comte de Chagny, he must have been looking for his brother ending up drowning in the lake and when the boy came down to get you, he must have found him and hence dragged him all the way up here. Once he found out that you, the love of his life were now engaged to his rival he must have lost all hope, plummeted into despair and took his own life.

You call after me, again calling me your maestro. Please my love call me Erik. You run over to me to see what the trouble is, and as I try to block your view I clumsily take a misstep and end up falling a few inches away from the bodies.

I did not have a chance to shield your eyes and I have to close mine in order to somewhat block out the sound of your angelic voice as it screams like a banshee. I open them to see you on your beloved's chest, sobbing his name over and over again and begging him in vain to wake up. Doing the only thing I can I begin to sing, waiting for you to blame me. Waiting for that accusation that will never come. You turn to me and crawl in my direction wrapping your arms around my leg and sobbing into my knee. I pull away so that I can lower myself down; I take you in my arms.

Oh please don't cry Christine.

Please.

_**Fin**_

**Author's note: Thanks to my beta XXSacrificed AngelXX you rock! **


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